Aurora's Data Center Vote Proves Colorado Is Ready for the DACR-Hyperscale Plan Neither Major Party Has Offered

Komor: "Aurora just conceded the argument. Every other candidate is still fighting the last war."

DENVER — Independent write-in candidate for Colorado Governor Dr. Christian Komor today called the Aurora City Council's Monday-night vote on the state's first data-center water regulation — a ban on evaporative cooling — "the moment Colorado stopped pretending the AI-and-water collision was hypothetical," and challenged the major-party candidates to say plainly whether they will lead or follow.

Aurora's measure would ban evaporative cooling in commercial, industrial, and multifamily construction, forcing data-center operators onto closed-loop systems, and is the opening move in a rulemaking Councilwoman Amy Wiles said the city expects to complete by year's end (Denver Post, Sept. 14, 2026). Aurora joins Denver (one-year moratorium), Broomfield (18-month moratorium through December 2027), Longmont (ban), Jefferson County (10-month timeout), Lochbuie (five-year ban), and Larimer County (Denver Post; Denver Gazette, Sept. 12, 2026). Loveland City Council votes tonight on a six-month suspension of its own (Denver Gazette). Nationally, more than 300 jurisdictions across 44 states have moratoria in place, stalling roughly $64 billion in projects (CNN Business, Sept. 11, 2026).

"Every one of these municipalities is doing the state's job for it," Komor said. "They are saying no because Denver has never said what yes should look like. My platform said it in writing months ago: closed-loop cooling is the floor, not the ceiling. Waste heat capture is mandatory. Colorado owns a piece of the enterprise. Union labor builds it. And the same waste heat the AI industry currently dumps into our sky pulls legacy carbon back out of it."

What Komor is proposing that no other candidate has put on paper:

• A statewide floor, not a patchwork. Every hyperscale data center in Colorado must use closed-loop R-744 dielectric immersion cooling — verifiable zero-water — as a condition of grid interconnection and state permitting. No municipality should have to fight this fight alone.

• Mandatory waste-heat capture, primary use DACR. Every hyperscale facility must route its 50-to-65°C reject heat into a co-located Direct Atmospheric Carbon Removal plant, upgraded by a single-stage R-245fa heat pump to the 90-to-100°C sorbent-regeneration band. The physics was independently verified in May 2026 by City University of Hong Kong researchers (Fang et al., arXiv:2605.13114), who calculated a 25.6-million-tonne-per-year national capture potential from data-center waste heat alone. Colorado's Interstate DACR Program is designed to scale that ceiling roughly fortyfold.

• The AIDC Infrastructure Levy. Hyperscale operators pay the full replacement cost of the power, water, and roads they wear out — Colorado prices, Colorado workers, mandatory Project Labor Agreement.

• State ownership stake. Through the Colorado Carbon Development Authority — a TABOR-exempt government-owned enterprise — Colorado retains an equity position in the DACR-hyperscale enterprise instead of leasing its land back to Sand Hill Road.

• A Colorado Firewall. Any operator that refuses these terms is free to build in Texas or Virginia. Colorado is not an unpriced dumping ground for AI training exhaust.

Komor noted that Aurora officials acknowledged data centers currently account for 0.3 percent of the city's water use, but that the trajectory — nine facilities operating, five more in permitting or land acquisition in Aurora alone — is what triggered the vote (Denver Post). "The number is 0.3 percent today because the buildout has barely started," Komor said. "The Aurora Council can read a trend line. So can voters."

Komor, a licensed psychologist and author of the peer-reviewable Extinction Envelope paleoclimate synthesis (EarthArXiv, DOI: 10.31223/X5H214), is running as an independent write-in candidate for Colorado Governor with a 22-deliverable platform organized around four cornerstones: Restoring Middle-Class Colorado; Colorado Built (Water, Power, and Climate as a Jobs Program); Safety, Schools, and Streets; and Citizen-Sourced Governance. Deliverable 8 (Interstate DACR Program) and Deliverable 8-A (Managing AI Responsibly) address the collision Aurora is now voting on. The full platform is at k4gov.com. Technical documentation on the DACR-hyperscale pairing is at DACRHSDC.com.

"Governor Polis is termed out. Attorney General Weiser and Mr. Marx have offered voters nothing on this," Komor said. "The cities are doing the work because the state has not. Elect a governor who has already written the plan down."

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Dr. Christian Komor is an independent write-in candidate for Colorado Governor in the 2026 general election. He lives and works in Colorado. Media inquiries: info@k4gov.com · (800) 884-0824.